Secundina Camarena (1891-2005) validation
The Gerontology Research Group is excited to announce the validation of Secundina Camarena, nee Nieves, known as Sara. Sara was born in San Jose, Tayahua, Zacatecas, Mexico, on July 16th 1891 (claimed 1904) to Victoriano and Tomasa Nieves, baptised 12 days later on the 28th.
Interestingly, when Sara married Gregorio Camarena on June 1st 1921, Sara started to understate her age. We believe this was possibly because her husband was 9 years her junior, being born in 1900, she wanted to avoid social stigma from this. Also, going on to have children, this would help keep the appearance of not being an ‘older mother’ which can be frowned upon in some cultures. Whilst this cannot be confirmed, as such, this seems the most likely reason. They had at least eight children together.
In 1928, Sara moved to the US, settling in Fresno, Fresno County, California. Sara was sadly widowed in 2001, when Gregorio passed away at age 100. They had been married for 80 years. Sara continued to live in Fresno after her husband’s death, until her own death on June 20th 2005, aged 113 years, 339 days. She was just 26 days from her 114th birthday.
Whilst this lady’s case was never a publicly known one, we have the Social Security Administration Study to thank for her validation. Initially, some years ago, this case had been added to our ‘debunked’ list based on her obituary claim of being ‘only’ 100 years of age at death. However, on re-examination last year, it was discovered through evidence gathered, that she was indeed the age claimed on her Social Security correspondence. Therefore, Sara was verified by myself and the SSA study and accepted as validated by the GRG on January 8th 2024.
